Mild winter in Central New York means 2012 will be a bad tick year

Mike Greenlar / The Post-Standard, 2011T.J. Neveldine, of Fayetteville, uses a fine brush to check for ticks on his St. Bernard dogs Nova (left) and Zeek May 19, 2011 at Green Lakes State Park.

Scientists are predicting 2012 will be a very bad tick year. We spoke with Paul Curtis, a professor of natural resources at Cornell University and a Cornell Cooperative Extension wildlife specialist, about what that means. He has coordinated the university's Wildlife Damage Management Program for more than 20 years and his research focuses on reducing human-wildlife conflicts and minimizing the potential for disease transmission.

You're warning people in Central New York that 2012 is going to be a bad tick year. What does that mean and why is it going to be a bad tick year?

The biggest reason is, with this warm, mild weather we've had in the last few weeks, ticks are active about a month earlier than usual. We also had a mild fall last year, which means they didn't go dormant till late, so we've got a tick season that's probably a couple months longer than usual. With ticks out and about this early, there's a greater chance that people will come into contact with them.

I'm in the Ithaca area and I've already pulled several ticks from my pets and I've had several people report to me that they've either had ticks personally or they've taken ticks off their pets. Anytime the temperature gets above 45 degrees or so for an extended period of time, the ticks are going to be out and active and questing.

Once they are active, how long can a tick live without a host?

They have to go dormant over the winter months, so they can survive quite a while. When they are active, it's really variable. They'll need to get a blood meal some time during these spring months and probably another blood meal some time during the fall months. So they can go quite a long time without finding a host.

When they do find a host, how long are they attached to it?

After they get engorged and filled with blood, they'll eventually drop off and that whole process might take up to a week or more. For ticks to transmit Lyme disease to people or pets, they need to be attached at least 48 hours.

We are warned to be aware of the tick problem and to take precautions, but these things are the size of a sesame seed. How do you protect yourself and how do you even know if you have one on you?

People can wear light colored clothing, for example light tan or white pants, because even the small nymphal ticks will show up pretty well on light clothing. You might miss them completely on dark clothing.

If you're in an area where you know there a lot of ticks and you've picked up ticks there before, duck tape your pant legs to the top of your boots or shoes so the ticks can't get underneath the pant let and gain access that way.

At the end of day, because ticks need to be attached for 48 hours, just do a good thorough head-to-toe body check, get in the shower and get cleaned off after (hiking or working outdoors). If you find any ticks attached, just take a good pair of tweezers and grab them as close to the skin as you can, just pull the tick out and treat the area with disinfectant.

What are nymphal ticks?

View full sizeThe Associated PressA female deer tick is seen under a microscope.

There are three parts of the black-legged (the proper name for deer ticks) tick's life cycle - larva, nymph and adult. Those are the ones that pass Lyme disease to people and pets.

The larva is the tiniest stage, really small. They usually are looking for small mammals as hosts and the most common would be the white-footed mouse and other small mice. Actually, the white-footed mouse is the reservoir for the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. So the larval tick will pick up the bacterium from the mouse and when they go through the second stage, the nymph stage, the ticks that fed on infected mice will then be able to infect other animals. It's the nymphal tick that's most often implicated for infecting people and pets because they are small in size and still hard to see. Usually adult ticks are more easily seen and people know when they have been bitten and can easily get the adult ticks off in time. Once the larva ticks pick up Lyme disease from the mice, then they're going to carry it throughout the other life stages.

We never used to find ticks on our dogs, but maybe about 10 years ago, we started finding them. Why is that?

Ticks are definitely on the increase in Upstate New York, particularly in Ithaca -- that's a hot spot, and in certain parts of Syracuse there are hot spots. I think it's a combination of higher deer densities and milder winters. Ticks tend to be most prevalent where deer densities are higher.